Caulk is a magazine-style theme, which means it has a sophisticated post structure, including multiple loops of posts. Caulk gives a lot of customization options for displaying and organizing your posts. It is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the way that Caulk handles post organization. The hierarchy or “importance” of all posts is:

Sticky posts (top-right panel)

Featured Posts (top-left panel)

Popular Posts (below top panel in grey area)

Recent Posts (main content section)

Random Posts (bottom of right-hand sidebar)

Each post loop takes into account any previous post loops on the page so as not to display redundant posts, with the exception of random posts. Featured posts do not include sticky posts, but sticky posts can include featured posts (since sticky posts are above featured posts in the hierarchy). So, posts appear in the popular posts loop only if they don’t first appear in the sticky or the featured posts (and assuming they qualify as “popular” posts). Posts appear in the recent posts loop only if they have not appeared in any of the other three loops on the page. It is important that you understand the distinctions and caveats between the different loops so you will know the best way to label your posts.

Sticky posts are determined by marking a post “Sticky” using the checkbox in the quick edit view in the Edit Posts area of your blog. These are always shown first and given top priority over any other post type. Keep in mind there are only two spaces for sticky posts, and as a result of this, any post marked sticky after the first two will not appear in any loops on the front page (they will appear in random posts).

Featured posts are determined by tagging a post with the “featured” tag. You can adjust how many featured posts are rotated, as well as the duration that each panel is visible, using the Caulk Options page. If you select four, make sure there are four posts tagged “featured”. If you mark a post both sticky and featured, sticky will take precendent and the post will not show up in the featured panel. Make sure to un-sticky a featured post for it to show up in the featured panel.

WORDPRESS TIP: To quickly view all of your featured posts, go to the post edit screen, find a post with the featured tag, and click on that featured tag. You will then see a filtered view of only your featured posts so you can quickly manage them from one panel.

Popular posts are determined by posts having the most number of comments. You can adjust how many popular posts are rotated, as well as the duration that each panel is visible, using the Caulk Options page. If a post is marked sticky or featured it will not display in the popular posts panel. An accurate description of the popular posts panel is: all of your posts sorted by number of comments minus sticky and featured posts.

Recent Posts are simply all of your remaining posts sorted by date, newest to oldest.

Random posts do not take into account, nor do they have any bearing, on any of the other four loops. They are simply a randomly generated list of posts, and you can determine how many to display in the Caulk Options page.